The species at risk need a lobbyist.

The species at risk—exactly. They need a lobbyist, or they need a $19-million-a-year CEO to whisper in the ear of the Premier to say, “Move the highway somewhere else,” because we know the route got moved. We don’t know why. My suggestion is that somebody else made a little whisper in the Premier’s ear about why they moved the route of the highway. It would be nice if they could move the route of the highway to protect this little minnow fish, but I don’t think that’s happening.

Interjection.

I think, also, that it’s really shocking to see this government that talks about that they’re for the people, that they don’t want to interfere, that they are supposed to be not about big government—but this is a government that is nothing but about heavy-handed, big-footed actions on the part of the government. They consolidate power in the Premier’s office. They give a minister, one minister, the power to issue MZOs, despite the mess that they got themselves in with MZOs.

Interjection: Two ministers.

I would just like to read what the Regional Chief Glen Hare had to say about this. He said, “We don’t have that word, expropriation [in Anishnaabemowin]. It’s time for these elected leaders, the ones we put into office to stop flying around on their jets while people, we are dying in this place, from drugs, from suicide, from unclean water. And these are issues that are affecting people no matter the colour of their skin. It’s time for Indigenous leadership to be respected.”

I just find it so heartwarming—the concept of expropriating land is something that’s not in their culture. But at the same time, they had to face, every day, a government who’s prepared to bulldoze over their land and their rights, who’s prepared to bulldoze over their traditional territory, and certainly is not prepared to engage in meaningful consultation when it comes to such important things as the loss of lands that are important to them.

Now, again, this “Get ’er done” bill—

Schedule 3 of this bill should have a particular title, which should be the official flip-flop schedule in the bill, because it talks specifically about, yet again, this government’s meddling in official plans of regions and municipalities across the province. This is the third kick at the can in two years for this government when it comes to meddling with regional and official plans.

Bear with me here. So the government forced urban boundary expansions on municipalities and regions that they didn’t want. They issued MZOs that, including the urban boundary expansions—this is all part of the greenbelt scandal—were seen to have been given preferential treatment that came directly from lobbyists into the minister’s official plans, and we know that resulted in what? It was described by the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner as what can only be described as a corrupted, unfair process. It gave preferential treatment to insiders. It led to an RCMP investigation and so, really, this whole thing was a mess. You would think that this minister and this government wouldn’t want to kick this hornet’s nest again, but no, here they are.

This schedule is reversing reversals from a previous reversal to regions’ official plans. Confused yet?

Interjection.

The minister himself, I would say, inherited this mess, if I could be so bold to say that, and the minister was really clear that this process was less than adequate. In fact, at the time it’s reported that municipal Progressive Conservatives told the Star that Calandra was taken aback by the mess he has inherited. Calandra also said that when “reviewing how decisions were made regarding official plans, it is ... clear that they failed to meet this test.” And that’s the test of appropriate procedure—

The minister is quoted as having said he has been “reviewing past decisions of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to ensure they were made in a ‘manner that maintains and reinforces public trust.’

“He said ’it is clear’ the changes made to urban boundaries ‘failed to meet that test.’” And there was “‘too much involvement from the minister’s office, too much involvement from individuals in the minister’s office’ in those decisions.”

I would say that what we have here with schedule 3, when we’re talking about the official amendment act or the official amendment flip-flop act, we’re doing the same thing all over again. I mean, it’s not clear where these requests to reinstate changes that were removed—where did these requests come from? There’s no clear evidence that we know where they came from. It’s been said that they came at a request of municipalities. Did they write a letter? Did they make a phone call? Did they have any kind of municipal process that made clear that this pushback was something that wasn’t just a mayor of a lower-tier municipality getting on the phone to the Premier?

I say we have not learned our lesson. We’re still making changes to official plans or reinstating changes to official plans that were based on a flawed—which is an understatement—process in the first place. Have we learned nothing? We’ve learned, but has this government learned nothing? I would suggest what they have learned is basically not to get caught, to do it in a more oblique way than they have been doing it in the past.

The Trillium reported that this Get It Done Act to rezone land was requested by PC donors, but we don’t know who made these requests. We don’t know where this information is coming from.

Again, who is this government getting it done for? Is it municipalities? Is it lower-tier municipalities? Is it regions? I would suggest that, given the significant impact this has on our regions and the regions’ ability to get on with it—I mean, they’re confused. They keep getting conflicted messages and provincial planning in this province is an absolute mess, and it’s a mess because of your government’s bungling and constant interference. So I will just say that all across the province this is the case, but I want to talk about Waterloo because by all standards, Waterloo is exemplary community when it comes to planning.

But a constituent had this to say, and it’s long so I’ll read it quickly: “It’s all red flags. Every red arrow is problematic. How the province can force open and destroy thousands of acres of farmland without any data, rationale, or justification when the region has spent five years and million of dollars on planning, land needs assessment studies, consultant reports and come up with a plan so broadly endorsed by our community of municipalities, passing almost unanimously with none of these additional lands is astounding.”

It goes on to say, “Both Waterloo region and Halton region are being decimated by the province here and our official plans are destroyed.” And I mean, honestly, that’s so much time and so much money, the resources, the effort, the lost opportunity, all because this government cannot get it right, can’t help themselves from meddling on behalf of Mr. X and third parties.

I miss Mr. X. Do we all miss Mr. X a little bit? Have we forgotten about him?